When John Farrell goes to buy medicine for his pregnant wife, in the seedy dock area of London, he is attacked and taken onboard a ship. The ship sails to America, where word reaches him, from his wife’s friends, that she died in childbirth. He is not told that their baby girl survived and was adopted by his wife’s best friend and her minister husband. Devastated at the loss of his wife and baby, John makes a new life for himself in America.
When the adopted, Emily Montrose, grows to young womanhood, she meets the missionaries from the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, and is baptized. Her adoptive parents are outraged and disown her. In the heat of outrage, her adoptive mother lets it slip that her father, John Farrell may still be alive. Shocked, Emily, who is a rich young woman, through an inheritance, goes to live with a family who have offered to take her in.
While living with the rambunctious Edgleys, in one room, she decides to emigrate to America, and finances the trip for her and the Edgley family.
Headstrong Emily finds it hard to deal with the leader of the wagon train that they join in Council Bluffs, Iowa. Adam Anderson, the train’s leader, finds Emily to be an “obstreperous woman”. Their first encounter went as follows.
“Adam Anderson was the Elder who first tried to tell her what she would need to take. She listened, and then made a few requests of her own. It astonished him that this small English sister would be so audacious as to question his orders. Immediately asking to see her husband, he vowed, ‘he’d be hanged if he was going to deal with any obstreperous woman.’ When she informed him she had no husband, he quickly jumped to the conclusion that she was traveling alone. “We don’t take single women along,” he stated. “You’ll have to marry, sister, or get your father to come along.” Furious, Emily so far forgot herself, that she called him a big lummox, and informed him in no uncertain terms of her connection with the Edgely family.”
The way to Zion was rocky for Emily and the Edgleys, and Adam Anderson found himself watching out for the family more and more.
You will love the relationship that develops between Adam and Emily but there’s another twist to the tale. John Farrell, Emily’s father, is traveling in the wagon train behind them. A non-member, he learns about the church and… Well, I’ll let you find that out for yourself. You won’t want to put the book down once you get into it.
There is danger, adventure, romance, humor and spiritual experiences as the Saints make their way to Utah. You won’t want to miss a single page.